Assembly Standing Committee on Emergency Management

Can you hear me now? Yes. I feel like you could have heard me here. Okay. That's fine.

So we're looking at the challenges that are eroding our emergency response system. Fire departments across our state cannot get the equipment they need, and the cost of what they are getting them at is beginning to soar. During the last couple of years, California faced immense tragedy from wildfires with 2025 marked by horrific Eden And Palisade Fires. Because we are vulnerable to disasters in the state, that includes wildfires, how we prepare and respond can mean the difference between lives saved and catastrophes being prevented.

And so as challenges persist, the departments are forced to make difficult decisions that affect the readiness and reliability, and the consequences are continuing to compound over time.

Aging fleets remain in service past their intended lifespan. Maintenance costs are climbing. Reserve inventories are thinning out, and departments are left with fewer operational vehicles precisely when California needs more. When an engine is out of service or department is still waiting on a truck ordered years ago, the gap in coverage is very real, and communities bear the risk. This is not a distant or theoretical problem.

It is actively affecting departments across California and the nation today. The implication of this issue for public safety and emergency response deserves greater attention than it is currently receiving. We want to understand what departments are doing right now to maintain readiness while waiting years for replacement apparatus. What is at risk if nothing changes? Today's hearing is intended to elevate this discussion to provide the legislature with a clearer understanding of the problem and to explore its impacts on California's ability to respond when emergencies occur.

We will hear directly from fire chiefs on the front line of this challenge and their primary state partners. They are best positioned to tell us what these delays look like in real life and how aging equipment affects day to day operations and ultimately community safety. So before we even get started, I wanna thank our panelists from across the state for taking the time to join us today and for sharing their expertise and perspectives on this important issue affecting fire departments and our communities.

I would also, at this time, like to introduce Heather Hedwick who serves as the vice Chair. Full disclosure, I'm currently in two meetings right now.

So if I have to run out, she's gonna take over. Would you like to make any comments, Heather? No? Okay. Are there any any other members who would like to make opening remarks? For me.

Alright. Thank you, Senator. Alright. Great. Let's go to our first panel.

As a reminder, we will hold questions into the end of their presentations. So our first panel is Cal OES and Cal Fire regarding fire apparatus procurement and the statewide perspective. We're gonna hear from chief Brian Marshall, the state fire and rescue chief of fire and rescue division at Cal OES. And so we're gonna invite write you up, chief. And then we're also going to hear from deputy director Jake Schoelen if you can join us as well.

Thank you both for being here. You can begin whenever you are ready. Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Ransom and Assembly members. My name is Brian Marshall. I'm the state fire rescue chief at Cal OES. I've served here for the last seven years.

Prior to that, I was the Kern County fire chief in Southern California. Spent 32 wonderful years working down there. I have bought a lot of fire apparatus over my career. And, you know, it's been it's been a passion of mine because the fire apparatus are what gets our firefighters to an incident and allows them to mitigate the problem.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to discuss the purchasing of fire apparatus, how we do it at the state level, our maintenance issues, and the current issues that we're facing at the state.

My aim is to provide background to you, from the Cal OES perspective. And I actually wear two hats. I am the state fire and rescue chief. I have a fleet of almost 300 fire engines, but I also represent local government. My job is to make sure that fire chiefs, when they have an incident, they have the resources, the personnel that they need to do the job.

We we've had issues with the cost, the maintenance challenges, procurement, physical physical challenges, and mutual aid impacts that we see literally every day. So California's fire and rescue mutual aid system, it's the most robust in the nation, if not the world. In fact, often, foreign countries come to Cal OES to meet with us on how we do mutual aid, and we've been doing it since the nineteen fifties.

The original Cal OES Fire and Rescue Division, we purchased 100 fire engines and assigned them to local government fire departments throughout the state. The mutual aid system is a combination of local, regional, tribal, state, and federal partners to provide that emergency response capability during all hazard events.

My motto is no one stands alone. Nationally, this concern has emerged regarding the the consolidation within the emergency response vehicle manufacturing industry. The rising cost of fire apparatus, the

limited production capacity, and most importantly, extended delivery times. It's affecting how we do business. Cal OES is concerned that the industry consolidation may be contributing to the higher cost and longer delivery times. Manufacturers have cited supply chain disruptions, inflation, workforce shortages, and component availability. The challenges that they state is what they say is affecting them.

California fire agencies, whether it be the state or our local government partners, and even our federal partners are experiencing the same challenges. Operational impacts, physical impacts, and again, I cannot stress this enough. Prolong delivery times to get fire apparatus. The current fire apparatus across the state, I'm sure you will hear today, is being held together with duct tape and bailing wire. The issue extends beyond fire engines though.

The California Mutual Aid System relies on a robust capacity of different fire engines. We don't just face wildfires across California. And I think if you look in the the news media over the last couple weeks, major warehouse fires have broke out across the state, one still burning in the city of LA. We have different types of fire apparatus. The standard type one fire engine to respond to structure fires, EMS calls, vehicle accidents, and even protect homes from wildfires.

Our type three and type six fire apparatus, you see those on the front line also on wildfires. We also have water tenders. Water is scarce in the rural areas during wildfires. And as we've seen in, the Palisades fire, water issues also. We have hazardous materials response vehicles.

We have swift water rescue vehicles that work across the state during atmospheric rivers. We have support vehicles, command vehicles, and a host of other specialized vehicles that make up our mutual aid system. Emergency response vehicle cost, however, have increased substantially over the past decade. Unbelievable. When I used to buy fire trucks, a type one engine was $607,150,000 dollars.

The price has now doubled. And that places additional strains on our budget. When we have a a budget allocation, our dollars no longer cover our cost. The delivery timelines, again, as I stated, we used to be able to get a fire truck in a year, a year from the time of a purchase order to the time of delivery. Now I'm lucky if I see a fire truck in four to five years, and that is one of the challenges that we face in our procurement issues.

Our encumbrance periods are only two years. We are having to go back and reappropriate money over and over, hoping to get our fire engine in a timely fashion. These delayed deliveries force not only OES, but our local government partners to use aging fire apparatus beyond planned replacement cycles. Here at OES, our replacement cycle is fifteen years. I now have fire apparatus that are over that time frame.

Fire apparatus on order, and I'm still trying to get them in parts. Getting parts for fire trucks that are fifteen plus years old is a challenge. It's affecting our operational readiness. These delays impact California's ability to maintain and modernize our fleet of emergency response vehicles that support the statewide fire and rescue mutual aid system. Again, our system depends on our local government partners.

During wildfires, our statistics show over 65% of the resources on a wildland fire are from local government. And again, no one stands alone. And when a fire chief needs help, when an incident exceeds their capability to respond to that incident and still respond to the routine day to day nine one one calls, that's when OES is called to help.

The reduced access to emergency response vehicles can affect the resource availability during wildfires, floods, atmospheric river events, hazardous materials responses, earthquakes, urban search and rescue missions, and all of the large scale disasters that we face on a daily basis. Delays in this fleet replacement ultimately reduce the surge capacity that California relies upon during these catastrophic events.

Again, it doesn't matter the color of the fire engine, the patch on the shoulder. California firefighters are responding throughout the state to help local government fire chiefs. For Cal OES, these challenges directly affect the state funded apparatus programs intended to close the gaps in capability. And it strengthens our statewide mutual aid readiness. We have almost 300 fire engines that the state of California purchases and our local government fire departments take possession of and staff with their firefighters.

But this extended manufacturing timelines create significant procurement, physical physical management challenges for Cal OES and our California local government partners. Funding must also most often be obligated and encumbered. Again, two year encumbrance periods in the state, and I'm sure your local government fire chiefs will talk about their encumbrance periods. It is a challenge. Long production schedules can complicate compliance with state budgeting rules, contracting, Department of General Services requirements, particularly when these fire apparatus purchases cross over multiple fiscal years.

Agencies must be required to manage the contract amendments, the funding extensions, the cost escalations. The cost escalations are going through the roof, and we still need our critical emergency response fire apparatus. If they're not available for deployment, the public is going to suffer. These delays affect the state's ability to efficiently confer convert the appropriated funding into operational emergency response capabilities. But this is not simply a fire apparatus issue.

It's an emergency preparedness and public safety issue affecting all of California in our all hazard mutual aid response. Regardless of whether the causes are market consolidation, supply chain constraints, workforce shortages, inflation, or manufacturing capacity limitations, The outcome is the same, higher cost, longer delivery time frames, delayed deployment of critical firefighting and emergency response resources. A competitive manufacturing base is essential to ensuring reasonable cost, adequate production capacity, timely deliveries, and long term sustainability of emergency response fleets.

As I close, California's priority is ensuring that public investment results in operational emergency response capabilities. We need to get resources as quickly as possible and efficiently as responsible.

These rising cost, prolonged delivery time frames, and procurement challenges reduce the state's ability to place critical resources into service and sustain the readiness of the California fire and rescue mutual aid system, Ensuring timely access to emergency response vehicles is essential to protecting the lives, property, critical infrastructure, and the communities throughout California. I'd like to thank you again for allowing me to speak today on this, very important subject, and I stand ready to take any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, chief Marshall. I I know we'll have some questions. If it's okay with the are we able to go to the second panelist and then go into questions? Okay. So we're gonna go to our second panelist, Mister Sholan.

You can go ahead and begin, director, whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Chair Ransom and members of the committee. My name is Jake Schollin. I'm the deputy director of fire protection for Cal Fire. Our mobile equipment program is of the programs under my purview and is responsible for the acquisition and make the maintenance of our of our fire apparatus. Again, thank you for the opportunity to speak with all of you here today.

CAL FIRE operates 537 fire engines, 300 of which currently meet replacement criteria. Of those 243

fire engines are Of those 243, fire engines are at least sixteen years old. Fire engines are typically replaced every fifteen years. At twelve years of service, each engine undergoes a thorough inspection and evaluation to determine whether it meets replacement criteria or if its service life can be extended. Every engine identified for replacement is included in our annual fleet acquisition plan, which is reviewed and approved by the Department of General Services Office of Fleet and Asset Management.

As you heard from my partner, purchasing and acquiring a fire engine can be a lengthy process.

In previous years, CAL FIRE utilized a mandatory contract for fire engine acquisitions. And when a contract is not already in place, it takes approximately three to four months to develop the engine specification, and prepare the scope of work for an invitation for bid. Once that process is complete, the Department of General Services can take up to six months to award the contract to a vendor.

And then once a contract is awarded, Cal Fire conducts a pre construction meeting with that vendor to clarify the specifications and ensure the engine is being built to our, requirements. Pre construction drawings are due to CAL FIRE within thirty days of that meeting for review and approval.

And under the state contract requirements, the vendor has two hundred and seventy two calendar days from the department's approval of the drawing to deliver the first fire engine prototype. So after the prototype is approved, the vendor is required to deliver six fire engines per month until all contracted engines have been delivered. In total, it takes approximately twelve months from contract award to receive the first delivery of fire engines. In recent years, the department's cost for a fire engine has increased dramatically.

For example, in 2018, CAL FIRE awarded a contract at approximately 240 $249,000 per engine.

And at 2025, that cost increased to approximately $677,000 per engine. According to the vendors, these cost increases are largely attributed to fluctuating chassis prices driven by increase in material and labor costs and by changing, on changes to the emission regulations. We have been advised that the next generation of vehicle chassis expected in 2027 could increase cost by an additional 10 to 50,000 chassis due to motor design changes.

The department faces several challenges when acquiring fire engines, the most significantly being delivery timelines, shortages of critical components such as pump controllers and computer chips, ongoing chassis redesigns, and labor workforce shortages have all contributed to delays. Vendors indicate that

they are still recovering from supply chain backlogs created during COVID nineteen, which effectively stalled fire engine production and acquisitions from two to three years. For example, CAL FIRE ordered and received 110 fire engines between 2018 and 2021. And by comparison, the department ordered 125 fire engines between 2022 and 2024. Absolutely. So an example was CAL FIRE ordered and received 110 fire engines between, 2018 and 2021.

So the three year contract term, a 110 fire engines were ordered and filled. And then compared to the next three year term where a 125 fire engines were ordered and only nine were received to date. And that contract, has expired. There are numerous manufacturers capable of building the type three fire engine used by Cal Fire. However, many vendors choose not to bid on Cal Fire contracts because they have difficulty meeting the state's 272 prototype delivery requirement.

Most vendors indicate they require between one and one and a half years to deliver a prototype. While the Department of General Services has determined not to approve multiyear mandatory contracts for a period of time due to instability in the chassis pricing and manufacturing costs. EGS has granted Cal Fire an exemption allowing the use of one time acquisitions or OTAs. The difference between an OTA and mandatory contract is significant. An OTA is limited in a specific number of fire engines.

If additional engines are needed, CAL FIRE must initiate a new procurement and pricing may change. A mandatory contract, by comparison, remains open for three years, allows additional purchases, and provides nominal pricing changes throughout the contract term. CAL FIRE currently has an OTA contract in place for 45 engines, and we expect the first fire engine to be delivered this November. The department is grateful for the committee's recognition of the challenges associated with acquiring fire engines in California.

I appreciate this opportunity to share information about CAL FIRE's experience and the obstacles we continue to face.

Thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, director Schoelen. So first of all, we appreciate both of you for, you know, painting the picture of what you're experiencing on the ground and of of some of those things are very familiar. And you mentioned, like, the fires that are currently happening on the ground, and we know the mutual aid is super important, and that sometimes different agencies have different apparatus that are able to come in.

I just experienced that right in the city of Tracy where I'm at, with this most recent warehouse fire, and we're seeing it happen in Boyle Heights. So thank you for for sharing that.

I'm gonna open it up. I see doctor Arambola or Assembly member member Arambola. Go ahead.

Thank you, madam Chair. Chief Marshall, my first questions are gonna be for you. First, you said you were from Kern County. I I was born in Kern County, and you said it was associated with SoCal. I think we like to consider you part of the Central Valley.

I'll I'll just say that right up right off the top. I moved to Fresno at a very young age and represent that area now. Yeah. I was moved when you spoke about emergency preparedness as well as public safety in regards to how we've doubled prices and quadrupled the time to receive the vehicles that we have ordered. And I'd like to, do two things.

First, I wanna understand if current legislation that's being carried by our majority leader in 1776 that addresses monopolies, if that will have an effect in our ability to make sure that we are understanding the impact that a vendor is having in what they are delivering as a short term solution, but then wants to think outside the box. I I worked in the emergency room and from from what most of the firefighters who brought people into me, duct tape doesn't do too well in fires.

And if that's what's holding our vehicles together, we need to do a better job of making sure that we're able to receive the vehicles that we need. Within medicine, within health care, when there were rising costs from monopolies within insulin or Narcan, we as a state started producing it ourselves. We saw what the cost drivers were, and we created CalRx for us to then be able to purchase at scale to address the issues of public safety.

I I'd like to hear from you if we as a state have ever considered or thought about manufacturing these ourselves. Is that an expertise that we should look towards our higher education institutions? See if on scale we're then better able to get cost controlled as well as to improve our timelines. As the current way we are seeking vendors doesn't seem to be working, I'm wanting to hear your comments on both, please.

An excellent question. I think if you ask all the fire chiefs in the room, our fire apparatus are very complicated, highly technical pieces of equipment. We're working on a new specification for a type one fire engine right now, and it's over a 150 pages long. And that will go out to bid through DGS who who controls that contracting process. But when I was back in Kern, we actually did build some of our fire trucks.

And it is a skill that not everybody has. The fire truck vendors that are out there that are manufacturing fire trucks today do an excellent job with quality. It's the delivery times that are killing us. We cannot replace our fire apparatus fast enough. And with today's climate driven wildfires when I was a young firefighter, the wildfires that I went to out of Kern County typically was Southern California Santa Ana wind events in the fall.

But now our fire trucks are on the road literally every day across the state, and they operate for twenty four hours a day. And they're wearing out, and we need the replacement. I think the real problem that we face is the vendors not being able to deliver a fire engine to us in a timely fat fashion. And that has to be fixed, and it has to be fixed now.

Doing the math from your presentation, deputy director, it would seem roughly one in 15 of the fire trucks that we ordered were delivered. When you're looking at nine out of a 125, I believe you quoted us.

Doing the math from your presentation, deputy director, it would seem roughly one in 15 of the fire trucks that we ordered were delivered. When you're looking at nine out of a 125, I believe you quoted us.

With that as as a result of our current status, I'm not trying to suggest that there isn't a quality that we're delivering, but it's not getting us the results that we deserve for what our investments are. With the best higher education institutions in the country right here, I, I have to believe that there are some that could gain an expertise, not all. I, I don't think this climate crisis is getting any better anytime soon.

And so if this current direction and timelines are, we may need to continue to investigate. It's not something we have to solve today. I just wanted to bring it up as something to be considered at all. Since you were able to do it in Kern, could we practice it in the North State? Could could we practice it in the IE?

Is there somewhere within the Central Valley that we could produce it and to gain those expertise over years? We're gonna need better results than what we're currently getting. And since the state has a pattern of investing to create value, it may be an option for us to look to going forward. I didn't hear anything about 1776, and, and I'm hoping you can comment on that as it is current legislation, and I'm not sure you're able to provide comments today.

But my understanding is the firefighters were supportive of that.

And is that in large part because of what your be because of what your experiences have been in terms of working with these vendors?

In regards to 1776, I would have to do a little bit more research how it all interacts with the fire apparatus manufacturers and, and how it would come together so I could answer that question intelligently.

Thank you for that. Generally, my understanding is with consolidation, increased monopolies, increased prices, and they're putting the squeeze on government. It it it oftentimes leaves the public struggling to get real results. And, you make a strong case, sir, for the need for legislation like that. And so if you can get that back to the committee, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, madam Chair.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Assemblyman Bennett, you were next up.

Thank you. You don't have to spend much time convincing us or convincing me, at least, I think, even us, that we have a crisis. So I'd like to focus just on solutions out out there. And a few things. One, let's hit at the issue of competition.

Have you been able to identify where are the bottlenecks in terms of competition? You mentioned one of you mentioned that we have a lot of people that could bid on these engines, but that they don't. So do we know how many do we have a breakdown of the market? How many people how many different companies are out there bidding, you know, that could bid on engines? How many of them are bidding on engines?

Because it's how many that actually bid on engines that'll determine the competition in that marketplace. And then could you break that down for the other major peaches of of equipment, particularly the ones that are most delayed, that are most critical? So can you help me with that first?

Sure. So in relation to the 110 fire engines for three years versus a 125 where one was completely filled and the other's not, I'll just leave you with that was the same vendor for that three year period of time. The in terms of trying to think about your specific question.

How how many vendors are there?

Oh, correct.

That could have bid on that?

Yes. I don't have exact number for you as I, I believe in the neighborhood of three to six, but I can get you an exact number. But there's enough out there to add to to the approximately six to 10. They're in that realm easily. Six to 10 that

As far as now to clarify, CAL FIRE is only looking for type three engine manufacturers. So Right. Whereas, my OS counterparts looking for type one, type three, type six, multiple engine types. CAL FIRE is looking for just a a type three fire truck unlike my partner.

So type three fire trucks. How many how many companies can bid on that six to 10 or three to?

No. I believe there's about a half a dozen and I can I can provide you that information or I could look at Steve Rums in the background? He could probably tell me exactly how many because he knows.

And then how many of them actually bid?

We usually be get about between three bidders that that play within the market and then we could double that Okay. Based on this two hundred seventy two day requirement of which we could adjust and, and, and amend. What you're probably looking at, we've already been working, talk with DGS about the requirement. You're talking about a three to six month difference between what the vendor likes and what the state's asking for in terms of a prototype to be developed.

So we're not saying the total contract to be made.

We're just saying from the time contracts awarded to the first prototype delivered, we're asking for basically the year and they're asking for a year or eighteen months.

Okay. And then on your side, for the other types of engines, the type one, etcetera, what kind of competition is there out there for

Right. And, and I can tell you, right now, we have one vendor who has three of our contracts. Actually, more than three because, they have contracts for three different types of fire engines. Our type three, which Cal Fire and Cal OES, we have the same basic spec. They have a contract for our swift water replacement tow vehicles and our water tenders.

And they bid on these contracts. They're the low bidder and they cannot produce. I have been waiting years for fire engines to show up. We have type three fire engines. Again, the same spec, the the same program that Cal Fire is running.

And we had they're not showing up. We only have two, which we actually just transferred to Los Angeles County Fire Department. I had two swift water rescue unit show up. I'm waiting for

But how many how many vendors are there out there?

I would say I would agree with Chief Scholen. There's probably only a half a dozen, but the three major companies, they're the ones that are controlling

What's going on.

Okay.

Alright. So you have three major companies producing most of the Right. Most of the equipment that is in demand. Yes. Right.

Okay. My second second question, and that is how much you talk about needing to produce a prototype of the engine. How much how critical is it that we actually keep changing the standards in terms of what engine capabilities that we need? So we therefore need a prototype. How much could we how much advantage would there be to saying, hey, we only change engine specifications every x number of years so that you don't have to go through prototype.

Excellent question. And for CAL FIRE specifically, our changes are directly attributed to safety features. And so what we're asking for and, and the delay in these engines is exasperating this problem is the design changes we're making, for example, would be have the hose bed as high as the cab of the engine. So when it rolls over, it's not crushing the cab and causing injuries to the firefighters inside, strengthening the wall between the bulkhead of the engine and the cab.

So again, you don't have cab crush, having Roltec seats, StabiliTrak systems on the vehicle for safety.

All of those are being delayed, and we're utilizing older fleet that doesn't have these added safety features. So ours are really tied to safety specific, more than anything else on the on the apparatus.

To what extent do we do we so do we change those with every order? Every time we do an order, do we come up with new specifications?

There's an it depends what we've learned over the past. For the most part, strengthening A post, things that I just mentioned, the safety realm, we're kind of at the end of that road. We have quite a bit of that lift done. We just haven't been seeing the engines produced with it. Okay.

So what what I'm trying to get at is everything is a trade off. Correct. In life because you have a trade off. In in other words, I'm gonna keep a firefighter in an older engine that has far fewer safety standards. Or I could put that firefighter in a newer engine that doesn't have the newest but is much newer, which is much safer for that firefighter. But to accomplish that, I have to forego doing the newest upgrades for a little while longer.

Can you help me with this? Is is that are are you guys factoring that in in terms of these delays? And I know these delays are relatively recent. But it right now, are we every time we do a contract, is it always a new specification?

I have to refine it definitely, but I'm very much well aware the department is that every time we make a change, it takes longer. And so we really like to not make those changes and we refuse a lot of the what their field would request in those changes, for the exact terms that you just stated that slows down the process.

So

So unless it's safety, if it's a nice to have, you're not gonna get it. If you're pretty much argument to have a change, it has to be in the safety relation.

Great. But but we go out to a contract It sounds like you you know, we did a contract for three years and another contract for so every three years, do we do new do we do new specifications?

Yes. Every contract will have a specification and the changes to it, I can reheard I can research and get you what those changes are if you're interested in how severe or drastic they were. Right now, we're under a a one time acquisition. The same thing applied.

But but but if there's changes at all, then it kicks in this two hundred and seventy five day prototype review. Not always. Okay.

Not always. If, if, if, if

that's what I wanted to get to. If there was no prototype review, would that knock 272? In other words, you ordered the same engine as before. Would that knock 272?

With this. Yes, sir. So during that three year period, if there is a change in there, no, we don't start over with the two hundred and seventy day requirement.

But at the end of three years, when you start a new contract, if you didn't make a change, would that knock two hundred two hundred and seventy two days off?

Correct. We would have to yes. And any any changes in there, we'd have to go with DGS even if it's not in the spec change, but a change in the terms Which would be related to spec. We would go through DGS. Yeah.

I was trying to get to that. So so you you you could potentially deal with the 272 days

Correct.

If we if we didn't make a change. Of course, we have to the trade off is we don't get the benefit of of the change. But would that then have more people be willing to bid because they weren't they were concerned they couldn't meet the two hundred and two seventy two days. But if they, you know, if the specifications already been out there, they don't have to produce that prototype.

Does each company have to produce the prototype or does just one of the companies have to produce the prototype?

Well, only one company's ever been assigned at one time. And so opening up to multiple companies to build would be an interesting thing to to to look into.

Yeah. That would okay. Then my next question is the the the delay at the DGS state. You know, they take six months for the contract to be reviewed. Could we throw more resources at DGS specifically for this to speed up these things?

In other words, would it be cost effective for us to say we want these reviews to take place in six weeks instead of six months. And here are x number of additional personnel to ram these contracts through faster. Would that would that be a potential

I can't speak directly to DGS. Angela, I know from DGS is here and should probably speak to that. They've been very responsive to that ask that CAL FIRE's made in in terms of this last contract and not getting the the terms met, but also getting into our one time acquisitions of which they were rapid in getting us several. We have, multiple manufacturers now building because we do crew buses along with the engines. Whereas before it was the same vendor, now we have multiple.

So they've been very efficient with that in in their timelines.

And I'm not trying to be critical of anybody here. I'm just trying to find solutions to to try to speed speed these things up. And then, you know, the the the third thing is the steadiness of the orders. It seems that if if manufacturers knew that we could have a ten year plan, we're gonna order this many fire engines work. And we make a big commitment.

That big commitment allows them to really standardize their workforce, standardize their Assembly lines, standardize all kinds of things. How much do do you do do you think there's much I'm I'm sorry. Not standards, but how much would steady orders help improve the process? There's more that we have to but is that is that something worth throwing significant research energy into in terms of trying to see if that would be helpful?

Cal Fire specifically, we've done 30 engines on average per year, for I can show you for the last ten years easily. So we already have that history of placing those orders and requests, and that's what we determine in the future we would need.

We have the history of doing it, but but have we made that a commitment so that the manufacturers know, hey, 30 engines a year are going to be ordered by Cal Fire for the next ten years. At least, you know, 30. Right? If we have we have we considered that kind of thing to try to increase the attractiveness of companies making investments that could speed things up.

We can certainly socialize it with the vendors. Again, I think our POs and our history out there have been very open about getting that.

Thanks a lot. Those are my questions. Appreciate it.

It. I'm gonna take over. White Chair Ransom ran to another committee. She should be right back. And I was next, so I get to call on myself.

But what do you see as the problem holding up the delivery process? Because that seems to be where we're missing.

Holding up the delivery process, that's, you know, a very difficult subject from the manufacturer standpoint. They're stating supply chain issues. Workforce is another issue. I know some manufacturers used to run two or three shifts. Now they cannot find the workers to staff that, so there's delays in that.

There were also slowdowns during COVID With purchasing a fire apparatus across the nation. So now fire departments are ordering fire apparatus. And so increase orders and the production hasn't went up necessarily. Engines, as chief Sholin mentioned, engine changes, mission changes. As those changes come in through the Federal Government, fire apparatus manufacturers need to redesign their fire trucks to fit this new equipment that provide presents delays.

There's limitations on the number of fire or cabin chassis primarily on the commercial side of the house that are delivered to manufacturers. So there is multitude of different issues that are affecting getting a fire engine in our hands so we can get them to a local government fire department.

Okay. They're not here to hear my comments, but seventeen seventy six touches on some of the problems, but definitely isn't the answer. But California professional firefighters did support it. I voted no on it. But I think it does kind of when he was talking about it, he it does talk touch on it, but I don't think it's the answer.

What do you think could be a fix for the vendors not bidding on our contracts? Or I

guess let me ask the second part question because it kinda goes into it. Are the policies here affecting these companies and causing those decisions? Is there something that, like, we can do to help from a legislative body?

I, I think we need to look at all of the processes, the touch points, the pinch points, and how we can streamline it. Again, I mentioned from my my past in Kern Kern County, the budget was approved on July 1. We were working with specifications, getting purchase orders in. They were usually in by the end of the year, and fire apparatus were showing up a a year later. Looking at streamlining the schedule, we don't see issues with, like, pickup trucks and SUVs.

Those manufacturers are able to deliver. This is a highly technical, highly specialized piece of equipment that keeps our firefighters safe, keeps our public safe. So, you know, having dedicated people to work through the process to get the orders in quicker so we can ultimately get the fire apparatus here quicker. But the manufacturer has to come through on their side of the house.

Okay. I think I don't even know if this is allowed, but they left me in charge. So I'm gonna ask. Can I ask DGS a question? I just wanna know what you guys need to make this process easier because I know you're working hard on it.

Like, I just wanna see if if there's more for you to add. And if I get in trouble later for pulling you up here, I apologize.

We'll both get in trouble. Alright.

Thank you. Angela Shell. I am the deputy director for the procurement division at the Department General Services. Thank you for, asking me, to respond to that. So I think what both gentlemen have said is very accurate.

These are the things that we are hearing from the manufacturers. We do have the statewide contracts that we manage. We've put other contracts in place for the departments to be able to use. And I think the challenges that we are seeing, again, is is very much, you know, related to the the labor costs, the the time frames. I think the two hundred and seventy two days has been expressed as a challenge by the vendor industry.

They actually want longer. So I think, you know, going less than two hundred and seventy two days might, you know, might, or, yeah, would be a challenge. But also, I think, you know, they've indicated they need a longer time frame.

I think some of the things that they also are looking at is really the budget, the idea that, you know, costs are continuing to go up and statewide contracts work a little differently than a department contract in that a statewide contract, we generally we ask our vendors to hold prices for up to three years, sometimes longer. We do allow some price increases, but they're not just a, here's a request for, you know, a $100,000 increase in a fire engine.

They have to justify it. We have certain criteria that says it can only be within a certain percentage of the contract. We look at the CPI. So we look at at a lot of things. And if vendors cannot justify those increases and they don't get the increase on the contract.

And so I think what we've seen in the last few years, from the industry is that, look, if we can't have just sort of on demand price increases, we are not able to produce. And we've seen that with, at least the one vendor that we have on, several contracts for for these pieces of equipment. So I, I don't know that it's necessarily an issue of, you know, DGS not being able to contract.

I think the challenge we have is that the industry is struggling to meet the demands of what's been changing, especially since COVID, the chassis, you know, conversation, you know, all of those things. And so, you know, some of the fixes potentially looking at the costs.

Where are the costs? And, you know, because those costs are continuing to increase, and, and I don't know, about the monopoly piece. I know we have had multiple vendors, on the contracts. And the one time contracts that we just, issued had multiple had different vendors than what we have on our statewide contracts, and, and, and they were awarded to different vendors.

So, you know, I think there's a lot, that we need to look at in terms of what the industry is doing, you know, what is our market research.

And it may come down to, some level of cost as well because vendors are struggling to meet where the industry is changing and staying in a commitment is a challenge for them. The workforce pieces, those are all the same things that we have heard from our contractors. So

k.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Appreciate it. I guess my last one, I, I was able to one of my, I came from the OES world for the at the county level. One of my engines was burnt over.

Luckily, Cal OES let them borrow one, so I'm very thankful for that and extended it time after time after again because it took a long time. Not this long, but, so I'm kind of familiar with the process, but, amazed at the new timelines because that was four years ago. Who are you seeing being affected the most? I know you said Cal Fire. Are you hearing it from the volunteer fire departments, like, our federal firefighters?

Or is it across the board, everyone? Or is it because of our state policies and restrictions? I know it's a very generalized question, but I'm just curious at this point.

I, I think with Chief Scholl and myself, we sit with our federal partners in a wildland coordination group. And we were talking about crew trucks. And, and OAS doesn't buy crew trucks, but I heard the same thing from our federal partners Yeah. On crew trucks. And I know So it is across the board.

Federal, state, local, tribal, fire departments are all struggling with getting fire apparatus delivered.

I've I've I'm sure you don't know the numbers off the top of your head, but I would love to know, like, what the number is of engines in the nation that are purchased each year just so that we can decide if we want to explore the avenues of creating our own. I don't think it's fair to ask any company to do that, though, without lots of financial support, and we don't have any money right now. So it'll be interesting to watch, but I appreciate it.

And thank you.

Thank you, vice Chair Hedwig. Thank you. So I'm back. I, I have a couple of questions as well. So given that there are no state law mandates on decommissioning the old fire apparatus, what are the safety standards?

Do we have safety standards for when you have to continue to move forward with the older apparatus? Should we consider implementing some given the situation?

I'll I'll take a stab at that. The National Fire Protection Association is the standard making body for fire apparatus amongst other standards. A fire extinguisher that hangs on a wall is an NFPA standard. They have consolidated their standards. They they had standards for multiple different types of fire apparatus.

Now it's in one. It's NFPA 1,900. And that's really our bible for the standards for fire trucks. This is a a group of individuals that represent industry, represent the fire department, fire agencies. They all come together to do the right thing.

And those standards are how we build our fire trucks. They're built to NFPA 1,900 standards. They change as they update the standards, but firefighter safety is paramount in what we do. If a firefighter doesn't arrive safe at a at a emergency, then that firefighter's no help to the public who needs help. So we do utilize standards.

And, of course, all of the DOT standards, no different than purchasing your automobile for your personal use. Same standards apply to our fire apparatus. So I think we have really good safety standards. But the fifteen year mark that we look at that's recommended in NFPA, we're now extending and extending and extending until we can get fire apparatus in to replace the older fire apparatus.

Thank you for, clarifying that. I guess my next question is gonna be in regards to, something that director Schoelen mentioned where you're you're doing, the contracts, with folks and then it's taking a lot longer. Are you getting it at the original price even after the delay? Are you still getting the original contractual price or is when you get the, you know, gears later, are you getting an an up price?

No. There's there's ability within the state contract to do, normal price increases, based on factors. So it was actually just mentioned to what your step out of the side of the room. We spoke to that, so I apologize.

That you missed that. But there is the ability under the state contract to do that. Under the one time acquisitions, that is a set price for that number of engines. So take the statewide contract, there's no set amount of fire engines that we can purchase in totality, 200, 300. Whereas in an OTA, we'll say we want 45 engines only and, and that that's locked down.

It's okay.

So if you want more, it would be a new negotiation of a price.

Understood. Thank you so much for that. And then, I just wanted to know, like, is it across the board, the I know the shortages. Do are you are different departments able to I guess I'm trying to find out how rural rural and smaller departments are impacted. Is it equitable, like, everyone's struggling and suffering, or are they able to help some of the smaller departments faster?

Like, are they prioritizing, in your opinion, how they're distributing the apparatus even though there's gonna be delays across the board? We know that some folks are in more dire streets than others. Is that a consideration that you're seeing?

You can definitely assume that if there's a contract that is less than what a person purchasing an apparatus outside of that contract is willing to pay more for, that they're gonna probably favor selling to the person that's gonna pay the higher price. That's not tied to this contract component. So, yes, I would say that was probably applicable in in a case in the past and out there, as one.

In relation to what was mentioned earlier on the engines, what we're what all fire departments are doing is we're we're taking our older engines and putting them into our reserve fleet Yeah. In in hopes that we have those newer engines on the front lines.

Well, what's happening is is is they're not being replaced. So that reserve fleet, the the criteria

for it is deepening and that's what's causing the problem is you you now still have the older most used ones falling off the back end and they're not able to come up front.

When you're talking smaller departments like volunteers, they could very well have a fire truck that's 20 years old, to chief marshals point, but only has 16,000 miles on it because it's not used as much, which is completely different than a than a, fire department represented in this room, which which puts on hundreds of thousands of of miles within a few years.

Thank you for that. So I'm gonna end with one final question. Since you are here before the legislature, and I know that it was asked about whether we should maybe look into what we'd take the bit to build. My final question to both of you or are there any legislative or policy suggestions or concerns that you you feel would be helpful to you through this struggle?

For Cal Fire right now, I'm no. I'm excited with the with the the help that EGS has been providing us with our one time acquisitions and, in the discussions and terms and conditions on future state contracts.

Thank you.

I, I think as we we've discussed today, our challenge is if I buy a fire truck today, is it gonna be here in three years, four years, five years? And working with DGS on procurement rules so we're not reappropriating money. We're we're have we never lose that money. The time frames are just so extended. And I think these are the discussions that we're having right now with DGS, and they understand our challenges.

Again, this is not going down to the local Ford, GM, Toyota, and buying a a car off the lot. These are all custom made and the challenges that we face. But we continue to work with DGS to make sure that we're in lockstep with procurement rules.

Thank you. We're seeing no additional questions. Chief Marshall, director Schollin, thank you so much for coming to share your expertise on this situation, and we look forward to being able to hopefully make it better. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. We're gonna move forward with our second panel, which is the impacts of fire apparatus delays to communities in California. We are ready to start the second panel, so I'm going to invite chief Zach Curran, which, who is the fire chief of the City Of Napa's fire department, as well as deputy, chief deputy O'Brien. John O'Brien, with the emergency operations of Los Angeles fire department. And I think finally, we're gonna also invite okay.

We have a couple veterans. Chief Garrett Huff of Santa Barbara County fire department, as well as, fire chief Adam Lozer with Fullerton Fire Department. And that will complete all of our panelists. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you for your patience. We look forward to hearing from you as well.

And I'm gonna start and we'll just go from my right to left with chief Puff, if you can Great. Begin.

Yeah.

Thank you. This is on?

Yes. It is.

Alright. I, I tried to cut out some of the things that I was gonna say that have already been said. So I'm gonna try to streamline this a little bit. And I'm gonna make this a little bit different than what you heard. What you have here is a panel of, local government agencies.

So you had state, now you have county, and you have cities. So there's a little bit different perspective that I think might answer some of the questions you were asking the state folks. My name is Garrett Huff, and I serve as the fire chief of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak here in front of you today regarding the growing challenges of that fire departments are facing in acquiring emergency response apparatus and the impacts and challenges that those are having on public safety. So the Santa Barbara County Fire Department protects two two thousand seven hundred square miles and responds to tens of thousands of calls annually.

It serves both urban and rural areas in in one of California's most diverse and hazardous environments. Our firefighters respond to all incident types and none of that is possible without reliable fire apparatus. So a little another little thing about Santa Barbara County is we we do all of that out of 16 fire stations. So we're not huge, but we're not small. We have a very diverse fleet.

For many years, as, chief marshal said, I also sat on the apparatus committee and helped design the specifications for the different apparatus we have. So I do have a passion for it. The issue before you today is not theoretic theoretical. It is, affecting our ability to plan, budget, and maintain the emergency response capabilities of our communities that we, that expect it and deserve it. When I entered the fire service, departments could generally order a fire engine and expect delivery with between nine and twelve months.

This kinda has been stated before. Today, these orders, routinely take more than three to five years. In Santa Barbara County, our type one firefighters or fire engines, those are the the ones that we all share. Those are the the main, bread and butter, the the structural firefighter in firefighting engines. We we purchased a large batch in 2007.

Remember, we only have 16 fire stations, so we bought eight. That was a big purchase for us. The cost in 2007 was approximately $336,000. Each were delivered within a year of being ordered, and today, we have eight replacement engines on order. These engines cost over $1,000,000 each, more than three times the cost of the engines that they're replacing.

Despite ordering them in October '23, we do not expect delivery to till at least May '27. That means we're awaiting nearly four years or five years for equipment that is essential for protecting our communities. But this isn't, an isolated incident to fire type one fire engines alone. Our ladder trucks and type threes are having similar challenges as well. The challenge is not simply, that delivery times are long.

The challenge is the uncertainty. Let me share a real example for us. For many years, our frontline engines all came from one manufacturer. So our truck and our 16 fire engines all came from one manufacturer. Consolidation in the industry, but that that manufacturer was bought out by a a larger group and closed their manufacturing plant.

So we no longer had the ability to order the same, engine that we've had in our fleet for decades or truck. So what we're losing then is we're losing the continuity in the repairs, the mechanics, the parts, the familiar familiarity of the firefighters that use them, and we're we're having to pivot to a new a whole new system. For Santa Barbara County, the, industry consolidation was not an abstract market change.

It resulted in the closure of that manufacturing facility that that forced us to change our whole deployment and apparatus strategy. As a result, we were forced to reevaluate the long term fleet strategy and transition I already mentioned for future apparatus design.

We began the planning to replace our fleet right after COVID. We evaluated many vendors. There was one preferred that offered us a time line of approximately four years. While that timeline was difficult to accept, it was at least certainty that we would get those eight engines in some amount of time. Another manufacturer came along and assured us that they could deliver significantly sooner.

Now this was not our preferred vendor, but

they said that they could get us the apprise sooner. Based on that, we made a difficult decision to pivot and leave the place in line that we were in the queue for that original, vendor and, and went with this new one. Those Those promises have not come to fruition and there's zero accountability for that. Unfortunately, again, never realized.

Today, those fire those eight fire engines have been built and have been delivered to other agencies that took our place in line, which is really hard to see when they post that on on social media.

Those were our eight engines that we we should've Harabedian it was sooner than that four four year timeline that had been promised. So we lost our place in line, and again, there's no accountability to that that new vendor to to change that situation. This is not a procurement inconvenience. It's a real operational consequence. And every year that replacement apparatus is delayed, that means higher maintenance cost, increased downtime, and greater fleet reliability concerns.

And that puts a lot more pressure on our general services, our partners, and, and our budgets. So it's not simple simply inflation though. I mentioned the ladder truck. We, we needed a new ladder truck. That's a very specialized piece of equipment.

It cost more than a fire engine. I remember when a ladder truck cost a million dollars. Now the ladder truck that we, we have in the hoppers three years in the making. It was a a demo, so it was already built and it was in red. Our fire engines are white.

All they needed to do was paint it. It's taken three years. We still don't have it and it and it has a $2,000,000 price tag. So it's not just type one fire engines. It's not type three fire engines.

It's, it's all of them. Let's see what else. And, and like I said, I cut a bunch of stuff out of here because I didn't wanna be repetitive. But, yeah. So the as chief march Marshall mentioned, NFPA and other standards, usually, you try to keep a frontline piece of equipment around for ten years, frontline, five years as reserve.

So you get about fifteen years of life out of it. And as I said, the the batch that we're trying to replace is from 2007. So we're already nineteen years into it. And that isn't just a problem now, but it's a problem as the rest of the fleet gets older because it's just a compounding issue now. We'll we'll have it'll take us a long time to get out of this cycle.

Let's see. We're not alone. I wanted to kinda mention I made some notes as you guys were asking questions before. So in Santa Barbara County, we have three three three ways to to purchase fire engines. We could either go out for bid like the state was talking about.

We could sole source, which is difficult. We have to go to our board of supervisors and, and, sell them on the fact that this one manufacturer, we have to go with them for all these other reasons or we can piggyback. And that's what we typically do. Historically, we've piggybacked off of LA County. What that means is they they come up, they do the hard work, they get the the bid, and then we add on to them.

So our fleet essentially looks a lot like their fleet. It it gives us a discounted price, and we're not trying to change a whole lot of things except for that paint color. And so that's typically what we've done in the past is we've we've tried to piggyback. Just Wanna Kinda give you that for perspective. We have not had major wholesale spec specification changes in years.

So a lot of our a lot of our engines are basically the same as they have been for the last twenty years. That that makes it a lot easier for somebody to come along and just start operating it without, you know, any any challenges. So today, we have eight engines that should have arrived to serve our our community, and they haven't. They went to other places. It's very difficult to make, multimillion dollar investments in public safety.

This, when when the prices go up, that means our staffing can't go up, our training is affected, community risk reduction efforts, and it and these are all critical public safety investments that we have to defer money to these rising equipment costs. I'm gonna leave it with that and just say thank you for hearing me and allowing me to speak today. And I'll I'll be able to answer any questions when that time comes.

Thank you, chief Hough. Since it's just the vice Chair and myself at this time, I just gotta ask. When you went to the other vendor because they said they can get it to you more expediently, was it at lower cost or was it the same cost?

You know, honestly, I, I will have to get back to you. I don't even think cost was we we were more concerned about the timeline than we were the cost.

Got it. And at this point, don't you just want the red fire engine? Okay. Anyway alright.

Thank you for your question.

Thank you for that. We're gonna move forward to, Deputy Chief O'Brien.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Vice Chair, good to be good meeting Committee Members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the County of Los Angeles Fire Department. The issue before you, rapidly rising fire apparatus costs, severe procurement delays, and downstream consequences for our communities are urgent, systemic, and directly affecting the safety of Californians.

No problem. Over the past several years, fire departments nationwide have experienced unprecedented challenges in acquiring essential firefighting apparatus and replacement parts.

As highlighted in federal federal oversight hearings, price increases on pumpers, aerials, and other critical equipment have far outpaced inflation long after the resolution of COVID arid supply chain disruptions. Yet prices have not returned to normal. They have instead continued to climb. In Los Angeles County, we have seen these impacts firsthand. Pumpers that cost roughly 500,000 a decade ago are now 1,200,000.

ARL trucks that once cost 900,000 are now approaching 2,000,000. These are not incremental cost adjustments. They are seismic jumps in price that strain local budgets and delay the replacement of aging equipment our firefighters rely on every day. These increases increases have occurred alongside extended delivery delays for both new apparatus and essential parts. When vital components arrive months or even years late, fire departments must keep older equipment in service far beyond recommended lifespans.

That creates reliability concerns, increased maintenance costs, and ultimately places both our firefighters and the public at great risk. Los Angeles County, like many jurisdictions nationwide, have determined that these conditions are not simply the result of supply chain disruptions or inflationary pressures. Instead, they appear to stem from consolidation within the fire apparatus manufacturing industry, consolidation that has reduced competitive competition and allowed manufacturers to outsize market power.

Companies such as the Rev Group and Oshkop Corporation, along with private equity partners, now dominate the market to a degree that raises substantial concerns regarding anticompetitive practices. In response, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors authorized affirmative litigation earlier last year or late last year.

The county has filed a lawsuit in federal court that alleges these manufacturers engaged in anticompetitive mergers, acquisition, and business practices that orderly artificially inflated prices, lengthen delivery times, and harmed taxpayers. The case has since been transferred to the Eastern District Of Washing of Wisconsin, where it is now part of a coordinated national litigation effort on behalf of public entities. The relief we seek through this lawsuit is straightforward.

Restoration of fair and competitive pricing for fire apparatus and parts, treble damages for the overcharges taxpayers have already borne, injunctive relief requiring the divestiture of unlawful mergers and acquisitions, helping restore competitive marketplace moving forward. This is not only about past harm.

It's about ensuring that fire departments in California and across the country can procure the equipment they need reliably, affordably, and on timelines that reflect the urgency of public safety. The county of Los Angeles fire department alone maintains a large feet fleet of firefighting assets that serve unincorporated communities and 60 cities across Southern California. When prices for new apparatus become inflated by hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, those costs are not only those costs are not absorbed in a vacuum. They force painful budgetary trade offs.

Every additional dollar spent on inflated apparatus price is a dollar diverted from other critical public services, from community risk reduction programs to emergency preparedness initiatives to vital staffing and training efforts.

When departments cannot obtain parts in a cost effective and timely manner or when deliver delivery delays stretch into years, communities pay the price. They pay through higher taxes, reduced services, and deferred investment in essential programs. As a fire service leader, I speak regularly with our personnel, the nearly 5,000 women and men who protect Los Angeles County every day. They deserve equipment that is safe, reliable, and delivered on a predictable, reasonable timeline. Our taxpayers deserve transparency, fair pricing, and a system free from manipulation or market abuse.

And our communities deserve to know that when they dial 911, the apparatus responding is not years past its intended replacement cycle because manufacturers have consolidated the industry and driven prices beyond what local agencies can bear. California has an opportunity to lead. Legislative policy solutions that strengthen competition, increase transparency in the procurement of emergency apparatus, and ensure accountability in the market will directly improve public safety outcomes.

The reforms sought in Los Angeles County's lawsuit include unwinding anti competitive mergers that stop unlawful practices, including or, serve the same goal, restoring the market where the fire departments can purchase essential equipment without facing artificially inflated costs or unreasonable delays. In closing, I'd like to thank the committee for your attention to this critical issue.

Addressing the fire apparatus procurement crisis is essential to ensuring the safety and resiliency of every community we serve. I look forward to continued collaboration as we work towards moving to a more competitive, more transparent, and more sustainable marketplace, one that supports the needs of firefighters and Californians alike. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, deputy chief O'Brien. I I definitely appreciate the kind of you shining the light on some of the the issues with private equity and the fairness of competition. But you also touched on the price is not returning since COVID.

And so I don't know if if everyone wants to speak to that later on, but I'm just wondering if if if you still see people blaming COVID or if it's just a kind of people taking advantage of the fact that they were able to raise up the prices during a time of great need and just and also when there was, like, lots of free flowing, you know, ARPA dollars happening. And now it's hard to get them to to go back to what was actually necessary.

So, Deputy Chief O'Brien, feel free to speak to that now if you'd like. Go ahead.

I I feel you're hitting the nail on the head on all those particular issues. What I like to bring to our county council's attention is in 2000, when I first came on the LA County Fire Department, I bought a Ford f three fifty pickup truck for $65,000. At that time, a fire engine was $250,000. I go by that same Ford f three pickup truck today. It might be 80 or $85,000.

I go to bed that same fire engine today. It's $1,200,000.

Thank you. Committee, before we move to our next presenter, did you have any questions?

I'm very interested in the the impacts of consolidation in in terms of the pricing. You might as well. But I know it's difficult. It's always difficult to try to actually connect price changes with monopolistic behavior, anti competitive behavior, etcetera. How much evidence do you feel confident we can muster for our attorney generals, etcetera, in terms of this? And how much of it do you think can be fixed by legislation?

I I do you feel there's pretty compelling evidence out there to move forward in the fact that our county is moving forward with affirmative litigation? We don't do so lightly. In fact, moving that needle is difficult sometimes. And the amount of time, energy, and effort that they've put into it and working with outside counsel to move forward, I feel they feel that they have a pretty strong case. I'm no legal expert, but the fact that that needle moved tells me there's something there.

Thank you.

Thank you for helping us. Alright. I'm gonna move forward with chief Kern. Floor is yours. Thank you.

Thank you, madam Chair and committee members. We really appreciate your time and willingness to hear this important issue today. My name is Zach Kern. I serve as the fire chief for the city of Napa and also as the president for the fire chief's department of the California League of Cities. The League of California Cities.

Excuse me. I appreciate my state and county partners that have spoken to you before. I've been going through x ing out to try and save time for the committee, but we do appreciate the opportunity to share the local government perspective from the city position as well. I'll certainly share Napa's position on this, topic today in our experience, but please know that we are representing all of the cities in California when we do so.

These three groups, primarily Oshkosh, the Rev Group, and Rosenbauer, now control 70 to 80% of the manufacturer's market.

And so while there used to be many apparatus manufacturers and we've heard from that experience today where they purchase these other firms and have closed factories, That's what we're having to deal with as a small local government entity. So this consolidation of market dominance have allowed manufacturers to increase prices significantly while slowing production times. Moves which have locked in the market, guaranteed future orders, and increase their shareholder value.

I'll just share a brief example from Napa about our price experience to answer some of the questions that arose. In 2008, we bought a type one or a regular fire engine for $462,000, and we received it in under twelve months.

Then another for 608,000 in 2015 and received it within twelve months. Then another in 2021 for 815,000 and received that in just over two years later. Historically, annual cost increases for these fire apparatus range between 56%. Then in 2025, we ordered and paid for essentially the same engine that we purchased in 2021 with the exact same specifications from the same vendor and the same manufacturer. This time, however, the cost was over $1,300,000 resulting in a 63% increase in cost in just four years.

To compound the problem, we were quoted a delivery time line of approximately forty eight to fifty two months. Our experience with ladder trucks is similar. In 2011, we purchased a custom built ladder truck for 856,000 and received it in under eighteen months. In 2024, we ordered a replacement ladder truck for $2,460,000 with a four year delivery estimate. That's 188 increase in cost equivalent to a 14% year over year escalation.

I do wanna highlight this point. These challenges do not end with procurement. The manufacturers have also significantly expanded their use of proprietary parts, software, and info and technical information. As a result, fire departments face increasing difficulty maintaining and repairing apparatus that is already in service. For example, we recently learned that a condenser fan retrofit was required on our ladder truck.

However, installation instructions could not be provided to our mechanics because they were deemed, and I quote, proprietary information. Our technician attempted the installation anyway only to discover that the supplied parts did not match the application. We are now required to wait for a specific manufacturer approved technician to perform the work using proprietary information. What should have been a routine and inexpensive repair that our fleet mechanics could complete has become instead a lengthy and costly process. Consider the applications for the local communities.

The city of Napa has already purchased and paid nearly 6 and a half million dollars for four engines and one ladder truck representing a substantial portion of our frontline fleet. Yet, we have been informed that we may not receive all of these vehicles until 2029 or 2030. At the same time, maintaining our existing fleet has become increasingly difficult due to proprietary restrictions on parts and technical information. Repairs often take months and costs continue to arise.

Now as we've heard, the manufacturers may argue that these outcomes are driven by labor cost, supply chain pressures, or even the customized nature of modern fire apparatus.

However, fire departments have been purchasing custom built apparatus for decades. Napa has worked with the same vendors and manufacturers for many years and historically experienced predictable delivery schedules and reasonable inflationary increases. What has changed is the structure of the market. This is important. When one city's apparatus is offline, the state's entire mutual aid system absorbs that strain affecting fire seasons, disaster surge capacity, and mass casualty readiness.

These exorbitant cost overruns, multiyear delivery delays, and restrictions on access to proprietary information and parts present a clear and present threat to emergency preparedness and public safety to communities across the state and beyond. Our fire engines are the workhorses of the fire department and the backbone of our emergency response capability. Excuse me. We cannot we literally cannot function without them. These three primary manufacturers have literally put emergency response in California in a choke hold.

As a fire chief responsible for emergency preparedness and all hazard fire rescue and EMS response, I'm deeply concerned that if left unchecked, these market conditions and manufacturers will critically limit our ability to respond to emergency situations and disaster responses in California. We need your partnership to ensure these critical systems remain functional, available, and affordable for California communities.

On behalf of the city of Napa and the fire chief's department of the League of California cities, we thank you for your time and your attention and your desire to dive into ways that California can respond. Thank you.

Thank you, chief Curran. I I will say, you know, you all have different perspectives and we're learning something from each one of you as as you are giving your presentation. So your time here is very valuable. So thank you for that. We'll have questions after.

And then we're gonna go to chief, chief Lozer.

Alright. Good evening, Chair Ransom and members of the emergency management committee. I appreciate you taking the time here at the end of the day and the end of session to hear from your subject matter experts on this critical challenge that we've been dealing with for the last several years and try and hopefully able to partner to come to some resolutions or at least some options we can look at in the go forward. My name is Adam Lozier.

I'm the fire chief for the city of Fullerton in Orange County.

A population of about a 143,000 people, six fire stations. We respond to just under 17,000 calls a year, about 4,000 calls per fire engine. And you've heard from all levels of government at this point, from our state to our county and now to our our local municipalities. And I will tell you, this is not just a California issue.

I've been working on this issue for the better part of two years with another fire chief from the city of Fountain Valley and here to tell you that this is something that every single city, every single county, every single state is dealing with.

And that is why you've heard some of the actions that have been taken today by the county of Los Angeles, the county of Santa Barbara, and I'll speak to what we've done with Fullerton trying to move the needle with the tools that we have to try to get some change, pushed through. Where we're at today, meeting with the this committee, we all try we all our goal is to make sure our communities are prepared. If it's EMS, we teach them sidewalk CPR.

If it's prevention, we make sure we're doing our building inspections to make sure that the facility is safe. It has the systems in place depending on what is being supplied or held in that in that building.

We work with our hazardous materials to make sure that those materials are disclosed so that not only people that are working there, but our first responders that are responding to those those locations have protections in place. And of course, our suppression, our technical rescue, where we have to have the available resources to respond to any type of, incident they may occur. And you've heard of a number of them just in the last ninety days throughout California, whether it's, the large warehouse fires.

It's a large possible chemical leak. It's what's going down right now in the city of Los Angeles, which is a combination of the two.

And we haven't even gotten really to wildland season and then into the into the rainy season as we have. So we have a we as a as a state have a very, large responsibility due to the complexity of what our state provides to us. And so for us, we are always trying to be prepared for our communities. And as as another member mentioned, the backbone of that backbone of that response for us are our fire apparatus.

To give you some perspective on what a reserve fire engine does, and someone else spoke to it as well, But you think of a fire a reserve apparatus maybe 15 or 20 years old.

If you think of the car you have right now and you think back fifteen, twenty years, it's it's it's a long ways. It doesn't seem like it. See sitting from the seat, but it is. And so there are a lot of changes that have occurred during that time. For first and foremost is definitely safety measures.

And that is part of our job as fire chiefs is to manage the risk of our of our responding first responders to make sure that they are in the most capable pieces of equipment driving code three. And we when they get there, that piece of equipment is doing what it was meant to do. Time is of the essence. So for us, with these reserve apparatus and someone also mentioned that when we try to get replacement parts for these, lots of times we can't find them.

We joke because some of our our equipment apparatus maintenance personnel have literally had to go on to Ebay to try and to find parts that can maybe meet the the close need of what a proprietary piece of equipment was on one of these fire engines because they're not made anymore.

So our frontline fire engines, those run on a day to day basis, but they also have to have their annual service. They may have some sort of an issue that happens to where we have to pull in our reserve fleet. Sometimes that reserve engine may be in service for longer period periods of time that we that we don't intend it to be.

And a lot of times, that's due to the proprietary parts that are on our current frontline pieces of equipment and the delays that we experience at the repair shops or trying to get parts or even specialized mechanics to install these pieces of equipment, much like chief Curran mentioned. So all that to say is the reserve fleet is is taxed.

And people people wonder why we have back, reserve fire engines. And that is really the reason. It's there to provide a temporary relief mechanism. It's not meant to run day to day. It's already done that.

And so what we're at now is a lot of us, the city of Florida included, those have moved into more of a frontline status at 20 plus years old. And you may look out of them. We take a lot of pride in our equipment. And you may they look great. They stand tall.

But the fact of the matter is every day, those engines are starting and stopping. That rig is making corners. All those things are are breaking down, getting older, just like an older personal vehicle. So I say that to mention that affects kind of the the elongated build times. So that is that is a big issue for the city of Fullerton, one of those issues.

The other part of that elongated build time is that the the fact that when we go to buy new equipment and everybody that lives in a local municipality or even in county or in the state, it is one of the most expensive pieces of equipment that a city will purchase. Maybe the next closest may be a a sewer truck of a super sucker of a vector truck. That may cost $700,000. But as you've heard, fire engines are now at well over $1,000,000, ladder trucks over $2,000,000.

So we as local cities, local municipalities only have a couple levers to pull to try to increase the coffers to pay for such things.

Local taxes, permits, and fees, that's not it. So when we get to that that that intersection point, my city council, city councils in with throughout the state have to make tough decisions. And sometimes the ability to have to pay for a new fire engine, that money may get moved out of keeping the library open for certain periods of time.

Cutting back on services to your parks and Recs Department, it impacts service levels to local municipalities and other state agencies because these monies have to be siphoned off to pay for these these, fire apparatus. And the increase in cost, we understand that.

And chief Curran mentioned the essential price increase over time, which was more to be expected. But when you have a price increase that is almost double in a short period of time, as the fire chiefs, we have to ask why. We owe that to our tax our our taxpayers, our constituents, to my counsel, to find out what is really behind this. And, okay, what are those reasons and what can we do to to change that? So that's your escalating prices and your elongated build times.

So for the city of Fullerton, one example of our engine, we built an engine in 2019. It took about a year to build. It cost $751,000. Same as you heard, six other times, that same engine, same spec, 1,170,000, and it will take just over three and a half years to build. I hope to get it at the end of this year.

So almost you know, that's a significant price increase that we can't save up fast enough because that's another that's another, I'd say, argument as well. You have to better prepare for replacement of your vehicles. Well, that's great. There's many of us that have very robust equipment replacement programs, but those are based on normal depreciation and normal cost increase.

And so when you have things that are when you have cost increase that are way outside what's the norm, how is how is a state, county, or city expected to make up that difference?

So we when we are looking at what can we do locally, we met up with my mayor who at the time was Mayor Fred Jung. We met up with Congressman Derek Tran of the 45th District. We kicked around what these issues we were having, and we decided to try to take the action that we could. So we filed a antitrust complaint with the State AG's office, and much of it was mentioned here as well.

This takes all this is a lot of effort and a lot of, I guess, deliberation by my City Council and my legal council to be able to take these actions, and they do not take it lightly.

But when there's so much cost and time, and at the end of the day, a response a response issue, they felt strongly enough to take this initial step. Upon further research, we decided to kick it up one notch, and we filed a complaint with the the Federal Trade Commission to get it on the federal level. And at the same time, congressman Tran also submitted a letter to this to the, the Federal Trade Commission as well emphasizing his support for let's get some change.

Let's investigate what is going on here. That's gone on, over the last several months of last year.

And then just recently, we opted to take the next step, which is probably the biggest step for a local municipality to do, and that is to file a class action lawsuit against the three manufacturers by the city of Fullerton. Since then, as as chief O'Brien mentioned, we've been folded into the same the same consolidation of complaints and are looking for the same types of resolution.

But again, our city, we we tried to use the quivers that were in our on our back to plot as many as we could to try to make an impact, try to formulate change, try to get the manufacturers to move their own needles to take heat of what is going on. And so those those actions are important for us. So and I heard I heard, one of the the members mention, you know, we've talked about all the issues we have.

What are some what are some actions we can take? How can you help us? How can we help you, try to improve the situation? I really don't know and I I I'm I don't know my my peers may think, but this is the solutions are not gonna happen overnight. And I think you mentioned something about trying to have manufacturing of the fire engines and determiner building something that maybe can happen within the state and 100% support that.

It's just that that's a long term goal, which I think we can all probably get behind. But we're looking for ways to figure out how to shorten the response to the manufacturing time, and if we can, how to reallocate the cost to these these apparatus. One thing to consider is that mergers and acquisitions of emergency vehicle manufacturers, they may need to have different guidelines before they're allowed to move forward on that. And was did that happen when these these, different mergers happened?

The Rev Group, for example, has several manufacturers underneath their portfolio.

And is that something that we can look into and, work with legislation to, have an extra step for anything that is more in that public safety niche. So two other two other actionable items or requests that that we can help work through or that can be considered. Is that requesting the California attorney general, the US Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission to examine the following.

Market concentration and industry consolidation, somewhat like we've we've all talked about, pricing practices, barriers to new manufacturers, and impacts on public agency procurement. Another action that we may be able to take is to direct our state auditor, the legislative analyst office, and or the attorney general to review the manufacturer concentration, cost excellent escalation trends, delivery delays, and procurement barriers.

A lot of these we've mentioned numerous times, but I know as as being in the fire service and I tell my own firefighters, if you're bringing a problem to me, make sure you're bringing a couple solutions. So we're trying to we're trying to make sure that there are some there are some solutions here that, this emergency management committee can sink their teeth into, get behind.

And even if we're able to open it up and find out really what's going on, then we can really start diving into making some of the important changes that can happen. It might not solve the problem for rate this instant, but maybe one year down the road, two years down the road, maybe those changes have gone into effect. We know that there's emergencies don't have a timeline.

So they happen without without any, heads up. And so we do have an opportunity here to improve the preparedness of the California fire service. And in turn, hopefully, that helps out the federal the national fire service as a whole. So I appreciate you taking the time to listen from the perspective of the city of Fullerton. My county partners, our state par our state partners, we are all in lockstep with this issue and are willing to help out in whatever way we can.

Thank you.

Thank you, chief closure. You answered some of the questions before we can even get to them, which is great. Like, you brought solutions with you. I'm gonna, go to vice Chair Heather Hedwig who's waiting to ask her questions.

Thank you. Thank you so much, and I appreciate you guys being here. I should have read ahead before I asked my questions. I was just on panel one and didn't even look at panel two. So I do have comments and questions, I guess.

I my the cities I represent are very small. I have 11 counties, and I only have 25 incorporated cities in that. So they're really relying heavily on grants, funding other funding streams often to buy one apparatus. It's three or four funding streams. How is this affecting your funding streams?

Are you guys working with that? Because grants are a limited window, limited amounts of money. Is that affecting you guys? I know you guys are operating on a way larger scale than I am. Are you hearing that from your colleagues?

Thank you, vice Chair. I can speak to that. The grant situation has been difficult when it comes to purchasing apparatus. Historically, it used to be a method for us that we would all rely on, and many of us successful over the course of our history at purchasing. Grants come with specific performance periods, and so we want if you're awarded a grant, you have a certain period of time in which you can purchase that apparatus and receive it.

And in the case where apparatus are taking four or more years to purchase, then it limits our ability to apply for those grants even in a normal grant situation. And, of course, at the federal level, the grant situation with, our ours our what have been our staple federal funding grants for fire departments is is a little bit up in the air. They're still open. We don't know what that funding looks like.

And even if we were to get the grants, we would have to go through processes on a what if maybe we can get exceptions so that we can still purchase the apparatus.

That was exactly the answer I was looking for. Thank you. So I think that might be a way we could help if we can do some kind of exemption for them and extend that time. Often, they're if it has a match, we're using federal funding for a state grant or state grant. You know, we're using state for federal or local matches or whatever that looks like, but it is much harder.

We rely on them way too heavily in my district. And I don't the last one's more of a comment, I guess. I don't think people understand the ripple effect of this. So if they're keeping their engines five, ten years longer, those engines are often surplus or donated or sold very cheaply to our volunteer departments and those smaller departments that aren't using them as often. But then that ripple effect is really gonna hurt them.

And my district, we rely heavily on them as well because we're just isolated geographically and plagued by fire. So I had 13 in my home county alone, volunteer fire department. So that that is something I'm very nervous about now after listening to this great informational hearing today. So just wanted to get on the record with that if there's something we can do to help. And I think we should write a letter and try to push the AG to do that.

So I'm all behind that.

Thank you, vice Chair. Assemblyman Bennett, do you have anything?

Thank you very much, madam Chair. First of all, have you folks been able to do any investigation in terms of the profits of these companies over these last five years?

I don't know if you know.

I I don't have a clear

That that that that'd be pretty compelling evidence.

I I have watched some of the federal testimony that's occurred And it's been pretty substantial, the numbers.

The profits have. Right. Great.

Then there was a there was a hearing with where the manufacturers were called to a federal hearing with Senator Hawley. And yeah. So there's there's some on the record explanations of profits.

Great. That'd be helpful to the extent that you folks become aware of it to share any of that with us. Absolutely. You know, the when Cal Fire was here, they were talking about how their equipment used to primarily be used in the fall. And now a lot of it's being used year round.

And I would assume climate change is not having as much of an impact on local you're you're still having the same number of broken bones and auto accidents and stuff. But is there a significant increase in the actual usage of the equipment now versus five years ago?

I I I think absolutely for us, we've seen steady increases in call volume year over year over year with no reciprocal increase in resources available to address those calls. So our personnel are routinely doing more with less.

And what's causing that increase in call volume?

Population increases within Los Angeles County as well as a number of folks who are just much more dependent on our fire based EMS system as their primary level of Okay. Medical care.

Thank thank you. And you mentioned the higher standard for mergers and acquisitions. And do you have any suggestions in terms of those? Have you folks in conversations had any suggestions for those higher standards?

We haven't had any closed group discussions about what those standards may be. But it is the fact that if if two companies are going to merge and they produce a an emergency vehicle of any type, is there is there a guardrail or guidelines that can be in place on build times, expectations, what their what what are they planning to do as far as their current operations when they do merge? Are they gonna close down a a particular manufacturing plan?

And if they do so, is that going to have a trickle down effect on how we receive our vehicles? Okay.

And then also, of course, the cost piece.

And final question. You were offering some solutions and I caught most of them, but I missed a little bit. Could you go back to the part of your solutions with without explaining or anything? Just read that one more time. I'll I'll know I'll catch the the

Sure. It was to direct the state auditor, the legislative analyst office, or the attorney general to review the manufacturer concentration, cost ex escalation trends, delivery delays, and procurement barriers. And we heard from procurement barriers from our state, Cal Fire and from state OES.

When you may say procurement barriers, can you be more specific?

I think let's see. I'm trying to think what I can't be more specific on that right now.

I I think from the Cal Fire perspective, and I don't wanna overspeak for them, but he talked about the two hundred seventy nine days versus allowing the manufacturer a little more time to be able to provide that for those five things. Yeah.

Got it. I think that's a barrier that he had.

No problem. Thank you. So, again, thank you all for being here and for shining additional light. I I think another area so, of course, we're we're policymakers. We're legislators, so we listen with, like, solutions in mind.

And and another thing that you really shone the light on was the replacement parts and the proprietariness of things that are really tools of public safety. And so I think it's really important that we take that information with us as we seek solutions.

And I appreciate the, the guideline suggestions for mergers and acquisitions, especially as it relates to emergency safety because we don't wanna be held hostage by private entities who maybe bit off more than they can chew in regards to merging and closing down and then not being able to deliver as the state experiences climate change and and more fires than we've we've seen before.

So I I just want you to understand that you really did give us a a really good look into your world as well as some of the things we need to look at because we don't wanna be held hostage by these private entities. And so we do have work to do, and I hope that we would be able to call on you as we are continuing to look at ways that we can address some of these issues.

I I do appreciate you being here, and and I can guarantee you someone's gonna reach out to you for follow-up as we look to, resolve this issue. Are there any other questions from the members? No other questions? Any final thoughts or comments that anyone wants to share? Don't be shy.

No.

If I may, just speaking for the group, thank you for your time and consideration. Regardless of it, the state, at the county, or the city level, this is a is a area where many of us feel that we lack the the political power or the the oomph behind this conversation. You've heard from some entities that are that are doing everything that they can.

And your involvement in this will really not only highlight the issue at the state level, but but put some horsepower behind the the issues for us. And so we we are collectively very grateful for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Awesome. Okay. Well, I will end by saying, we really appreciate you all being here. We want you to know that we hear and see you very clearly. In hearing and seeing no further questions or comments, we will go ahead and adjourn this meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. No. I gotta do that right now.